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Alien Times December 2003

Tsukuba Art Gallery

Volume 17, Number 11 Countdown to Tsukuba Express On Schedule ... Tim Boyle All Aboard! Tsukuba Township Names ... Svitlana Grytsenko What's a Teshirogi? Tsukuba Public Library: Which Magazines Do You Want? ... Shaney Crawford Time? Newsweek? Natali? Air Con Kanji ... Nicolas Delerue Read this before you freeze! Protect Yourself! ... Paul Granberg Viruses, worms, and spyware, oh my! Science News ... Nicolas Delerue Are you one of the 20%? Webster: Travel in Japan ... Joshua Jabbour Using the web to help you travel A Note from the Editor ... Tim Boyle Thanks, Nitika! Welcome, Ali! Don't forget to check out

Countdown to Tsukuba Express On Schedule

Having lived in Tsukuba since 1986, I've seen a lot of change as the city has developed. Even from before I arrived, there had been talk about connecting Tsukuba to Tokyo directly with a new train line. It was to be called the "Joban Shinsen" (the New Joban Line), but for many years, it appeared like construction would never begin. I began referring to it as the "Jodan Shinsen" (the New Joke Line). But the joke has been on us naysayers (hopefully), as work has been going ahead full speed in recent years. Everything is on schedule for things being up and running by the autumn of 2005. The Urban Development Corporation (Toshi Kodan) is a key player in the overall development plan, and I was asked to serve on an advisory committee of 11 business and community leaders to meet periodically over the next 2 years to give input on how we would like to see things further develop. I was listed as "Head of Tsukuba International School" and "Editor of the Alien Times". On Nov. 7, we met with several UDC and city officials and were given a walking tour of the underground Tsukuba Station under construction and a bus tour of the other stations and surrounding development. As the Tsukuba Express will have a major impact on those of us planning on being here two years from now, I want to give the Alien Times readers a brief report (with apologies to you short-term residents who will have to simply put up with the construction mess without any of the benefits.)

The first stop on our tour was Tsukuba Station, where we proceeded down a rickety temporary staircase into the manmade, double-decker caverns taking shape under central Tsukuba. The upper level will be office space, concourse to the exits, etc. while the lower level holds the actual tracks and platform. The tracks have already been laid and all the primary structures have been completed. From the appearances, it looks like trains could be up and running in just a few months, but having trains running without everything else being ready is not an option, as much remains to be done on related infrastructure.

As we looked at the diagrams explaining the layout of the station, one point of concern that several of us noted is that there is only one set of wickets to go through that leads to just 4 exits on the corners of the intersection next to the bus center. Passengers at the back of the train will be getting off practically under Nishi Odori, but everyone will have to exit the station through the concourse (upper level) above the front end of the train. Thus, while you may be only 20 meters below Nishi Odori at the back of the train, you will have to in effect walk to the bus center and back just to go those 20 meters. There will, however, be an emergency exit in the middle on the north side of the station, but this is for emergency personnel to enter the station rather than for people to exit (though, obviously, in an emergency it could be used for that.)

The reasons for this seemingly strange design are mainly economic, as this will significantly reduce the cost. Presumably, most people would want to exit that direction anyway, but concern was expressed that things be designed to make it easier to add an exit at the Nishi Odori end of the station in the future.

Tsukuba Creo Square Q't
Numerous pamphlets were handed out to the group, including one describing a 3-story shopping center to be built where the parking lot between "MOG" and the Bus Center. At the top of the pamphlet written in large letters in English, it says, "STARTING THE BRAND-NEW DAYS. TSUKUBA CREO SQUARE Q't 2005.4 GRAND OPEN". In the Japanese text, it says "Q't" is to be pronounced (katakana style) as "Kyuuto" (Isn't that "cute"!), and comes from "Quality Life of Tsukuba". Each floor will contain a number of small shops, with the ground floor (called "Daily Showcase") focussing on "daily needs" (a food court, coffee shops (Wouldn't it be a great place for a Starbucks!) and a variety of specialty shops). The second floor is to go by the name "Fashion Kaleidoscope", and as the name suggests, will focus on trendy fashions. The name given to the third floor is a bit enigmatic, as it is to be called "Life Style Museum". It won't be full of antique stores, however, as it is to have various music, sports and other specialty shops, along with "life style shops", whatever that is.

Other Stations in Tsukuba
Our bus tour took us to the areas of development surrounding the three other stations being built within the Tsukuba city limits. The first station after leaving downtown Tsukuba will be in the Katsuragi district, where "JARI", the Japan Automobile Research Institute has had its testing grounds. That is being moved to a new location and its spacious grounds and surrounding areas are being developed into new housing and commercial areas. Kita Odori is being extended to cut right through the region, with several other roads likewise being built to handle the additional traffic. The station being built in Katsuragi has been given the name "Kenkyu Gakuen" (literally "Research Campus"), the other part of "Tsukuba Science City's" Japanese name.

One item that I was very encouraged to hear several other participants in the panel bring up was their desire to see a full-scale international school be built at this location. I wasn't even the one to bring it up, though I of course added my "two cents" to the discussion. Plenty of land is available to attract various commercial interests, and having a fully functioning international school would be a major factor in attracting international businesses. Likewise, being near a station would make the school accessible for students from northeastern Tokyo and points in between. From most of those areas, it would be quicker to come to Tsukuba that to commute to any of the already existing schools in Tokyo, all of which are to the west and south of central Tokyo.

The next station is in the Shimana district and has been given the name "Banpaku Kinen Kouen" ("Expo Commemorative Park"), even though it is over a kilometer from the park, which was part of the grounds for the '85 Expo World's Fair. How the connection between the park and the station will be made was not clearly defined, and so the group suggested that if this name is to be maintained, there should be park-like pathway to the park or some other way to directly connect the two.

The last station within Tsukuba is in the Kayamaru district to the west of Yatabe Interchange on the Joban Expressway. As "greenery" will be emphasized in this region, the name "Midorino" has been given to the station. All three of these stations, plus several other undeveloped areas a bit further away from the line, will contain large tracts of new housing developments, bringing many thousands of new residents to Tsukuba, along with the accompanying problems and benefits. Many new roads will help handle the increased traffic flow, as well as making connections between various parts of the city easier. On the up side, the traditional isolation of Tsukuba will be ended and things will be "more like Tokyo." On the down side, however, it will also be "more like Tokyo", and so it is with mixed feelings that those of us who call Tsukuba home look at all of this. Still, I can't wait to hop on a train at Tsukuba Station and be in downtown Tokyo in 45 minutes! "All aboard!"

Tim Boyle

Tsukuba Township Names

This article was made for foreigners to have a better understanding of the name of their township in Tsukuba. If your place is not on this list, you can try to find its meaning in the dictionary. A possible way to do it is to find on a map of Tsukuba the name of your place and a kanji for it and look in the dictionary for the meaning of a kanji. I used "The Kanji Dictionary" by Mark Spahn and Wolfgang Hadamitzky (you can find the information how to use it in October 2003 issue of Alien Times).

The letters in brackets are other pronunciations of the kanji, which can make your search in the dictionary easier or just help you not to be confused when you see the kanji for tree (KI) pronounced GI as in Teshirogi, for example. The possible meaning I give after explaining the kanji is my own understanding of their combinations. So, if you can make a better one - good for you!

See the maps section of the AT website for a list of area names in Tsukuba.

Svitlana Grytsenko

Tsukuba Public Library: Which Magazines Do You Want?

I volunteer at Tsukuba Public Library, so the staff there often asks me questions about their multicultural services. This month, they are looking into their magazine subscriptions. I had some ideas of my own, but I thought I would ask for some input from the international residents here in Tsukuba. I sent an email out to the TAIRA list and got some interesting responses. In total, fourteen (14) people gave their opinions. It would be better if that number were higher, but I guess I should be happy with what I've got!

I will publish the results here, but if you have anything to add, feel free to contact us at Alien Times and we will forward your comments to the library.

The numbers beside the magazine names indicate how many people voted.

The library's website can be found at www2.library.ne.jp/tsukuba. (I am trying to get them to improve it!)

Shaney Crawford

Air Con Kanji

Winter is coming and it is time to switch your air conditioning from cooling to heating. Here are a few kanji that may help you do it...

KANJI	PRONUNCIATION	MEANING
	danbou	heating
	reibou	cooling
	jidou	automatic
	joshitsu	de-humidify
	unten	in operation
	teishi	stop/cancel
	kirikae	change/switch
	shitsuon	room temperature
	fuusoku	speed of air flow
	fuukou	direction of air flow
	hairu	on
	kiru	off
	yoyaku	set the timer
	torikeshi	cancel

The 2 last are often found near the (timer).

If there are other characters on the remote control, you can try to find them in "The Kanji dictionary"or at www.csse.monash.edu.au/~jwb/wwwjdic.html

Nicolas Delerue

Protect Yourself!

Periodically I write these articles to remind people how to keep themselves and their computers 'safe' while using the internet. Please read on and follow these simple instructions to save yourself the pain of potentially loosing all the information on your computer. Do you really want to loose all your mp3's, movies, e-mails, Word documents...?

Viruses and Worms

There are lots of them around, and some of them only require you to be connected to the internet to infect your machine (Blaster Worm). However, securing your machine against these threats only requires 3 things:

1) Use WindowsUpdate (CONNECT TO THE INTERNET - INTERNET EXPLORER - TOOLS - WINDOWSUPDATE). Scan your computer and install all of the files marked Critical Updates. This will patch all of the recently discovered security holes in your version of Windows.

2) Install and maintain your antivirus (AV) programme. The one that I reccomend is Norton Antivirus 2003-4. FREE antivirus programmes are available at www.grisoft.com In order to keep these programmes operating correctly, you need to update them periodically so they will recognise new viruses. Do this at least once a month.

3) Install a firewall on your machine. At the very least, you should enable the Internet Connection Firewall installed on every WindowsXP machine (www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/pro/using/howto/networking/icf.asp) A very good free firewall program is available at www.zonealarm.com.

Spyware and Adware

Ever wondered why you are constantly getting adverts popping up on your screen when surfing the internet (or sometimes while you aren't even connected). The odds are that you have some spyware or adware that has secretly installed itself on your machine.

It's easy to remove. Just install Adaware from here: www.lavasoft.de/support/download. Update the library files (you'll work it out) and scan your machine. You'll be suprised at what you find.

That's it. And it's all free

Paul Granberg

Science News

Two discoveries at KEK this month
Particle physicist of the BELLE collaboration at KEK have released two important results this month. First they have shown that B mesons violate the "Bell inequality". To do this measurement they used particles called mesons that had a common origin but had travelled in different directions. If Bell inequality was true, measuring the properties of one particle would let them predict some properties of the other particle. They have shown that this is not true as predicted by quantum physics.

The second result will probably shake the particle physics community for a long time: they have discovered an unexpected particle. This particle, called X(3872) does not fit in the current model used to describe elementary particles behaviour. One possible explanation could be that one of the force holding particles together has not been evaluated properly or this particle could in fact be a bound state of two particles, forming a "molecule" of particles... To understand what are the implications of this new particle more data and more exciting studies are necessary.

More details on Bell's inequality can be found at physicsweb.org/article/news/7/11/3.
More details on the X(3872) can be found at www.kek.jp/press/2003/belle4e.html.

20% of the community is not working hard
A team of researcher from Sapporo has discovered that in ants colonies not all worker ants are working ant. They monitored the activity of a tree ants communities during 5 months and found out that while 80% of the ants were working, the remaining 20% seemed to be doing nothing for the colony. Even if some of the hard worker were removed the idle ants did not work more and thus the extra workload was shared among the few remaining hard-working ants. It is too early to try to correlate these studies with human communities...

More details can be found at www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/getarticle.pl5?nn20031116a4.htm.

If you would like to see the results of your research done in Tsukuba in the Alien Times, do not hesitate to contact us.

Nicolas Delerue

Webster: Travel in Japan

Finding information about domestic travel in Japan can be a bit challenging. This month, learn about a few websites that might help make your travel plans come together more smoothly.

The first one is Japan Saver (www.japan-saver.com). This company will help you book domestic flights at reasonable rates. With 11 business days' notice, you can book flights to almost anywhere in Japan for about 20,000 to 30,000 yen return. (Okinawa is more like 40,000 yen.) They also apparently do international travel, so you may want to ask about that too.

Fill out the information on the website and they will call with details and itinerary. If you prefer to talk to someone directly, call 03-5401-1142, and ask for Yasumi. She can help you in excellent English. Very friendly, and helpful.

If you are thinking of travelling by train, here are some sites that will help.

Japan Rail Planner: www.jorudan.co.jp

Tell it where you're going, and either when you need to leave or when you need to get there, and it'll give you train routes, times and prices. And it gives multiple itineraries. (The other rail planner, Hyperdia (www.hyperdia.com), also has an English site, but it is down until the middle of December. You may be able to make use of the Japanese site for now.)

See also: Japan Railways Group (www.japanrail.com).

Before you plan your trip, you might want to use one of these sites to see what is available in outdoor adventures.

Ski/snow information: Snow Japan (www.snowjapan.com)

Outdoor information: Outdoor Japan (www.outdoorjapan.com)

Hope these sites help, I especially recommend Japan-Saver! Great deals and wonderful service. Have fun traveling!

Joshua Jabbour

A Note from the Editor

We want to welcome Villasenor Albania, who goes by the nickname "Ali", to the Alien Times staff. She hails from Mexico originally, and is now our new layout person. Nitika has returned to India, and so we wish to print a belated thanks to her for her efforts as well.

Due to the changeover and several logistical problems that were encountered, we were not able to get the printed version of the November issue out in a timely fashion, and so this issue is a combined Nov./Dec. issue. The web site version, however, has two separate issues.

Tim Boyle

Updated November 22, 2003
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